Gisela Selden-Goth
Gisela Schlesinger Selden-Goth (6 June 1884 - 5 September 1975)[1] was a Hungarian author, composer[2] and musicologist who became an American citizen in 1939.[3] She composed at least four string quartets[4] and donated her large collection of original music manuscripts to the Library of Congress.[5] Her writing and musical compositions were published under the name Gisela Selden-Goth.
Contents
Biography
Selden-Goth was born in Budapest to Michael and Rosalia Schlesinger.[6] Her music teachers included Bela Bartok, Ferruccio Busoni, and Istvan Thoman.[4][7] Her piano composition was one of 10 winners (out of 874 submissions) in the 1910 Signals for the Musical World competition in Germany.[8] She married Ernst Goth and they had a daughter, Trudy Goth, who became a dancer and journalist.[9]
Selden-Goth lived in Berlin and Florence, Italy, before emigrating to America in 1938. She returned to Florence in 1950 and remained there until her death in 1975. She served as a music critic for newspapers in Berlin, Prague, Switzerland, and Budapest, most notably for Prager Tagblatt, a German newspaper in Prague.[7] She also wrote books about Busoni and Arturo Toscanini and edited a collection of Felix Mendelssohn’s letters.[4][10] She maintained a lengthy correspondence with the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, often discussing their mutual interest in collecting original music scores. After Zweig’s suicide, Selden-Goth commented that. . . “A chamber group in a house or the opportunity to hear a good orchestra might have relieved the tension of that mind tortured by personal forebodings and by the vision of mankind in agony.”[7] She also corresponded with composer Ernest Bloch and musicologist Hans Moldenhauer.[11]
Selden-Goth’s music is published today by Universal Edition.[4] Her prose works and musical compositions include:
Selected literary publications
Articles
- “A New Collection of Music Manuscripts in the United States” (The Music Quarterly vol 26 no 2 Apr 1940)[12]
- “Neue Wege der musikalischen Erziehung” (New Ways in Music Education) Die Musik vol 16 1924[13]
Books
- Arturo Toscanini (edited by Selden-Goth)[10]
- Felix Mendelssohn: Letters (edited by Selden-Goth)[14]
- Ferruccio Busoni: Der Versuch Eines Porträts (Ferruccio Busoni: An Attempt at a Portrait)[15]
Selected music works
Chamber music
- Quintet, opus 35 (for strings)[16]
- String Quartets No. 1, 2, 3, and 4[4]
- String Trio[4]
- Suite for Violin and Piano[4]
Piano
Vocal music
- Book of Monastic Life, opus 44 (text from Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke)[16]
- Cantata[4]
- Songs[4]
- The Pilgrim (baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra)[4]
References
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